


surely goodness and mercy

by honeyinthenight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x06 fanfic gap, M/M, Mostly Fluff, brief reference to past sex work, but they want to, dean and castiel are in love but don't know how to go about it yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29506029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyinthenight/pseuds/honeyinthenight
Summary: Dean and Castiel meet in a motel room under the anonymity of the evening.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	surely goodness and mercy

**Author's Note:**

> yes dean and case ARE in fact married! but i have found myself writing the fanfic gap fic of my heart, and so here it is. i think i relate to a lot of dean's journey through repression. the desire to want, so deeply, something that is so important to you but also to think that it is wrong, unnecessary. the real thing is that we all work through it. both dean and i and you come out into light, however here's a little story from the in between, from the pit of desire.
> 
> main song that helped me finish the mood of this fic: Adventure Team by RIZ LA VIE

“Cas, I can’t let you do this.” Dean’s words hang heavy in the car, fog the windows. Newly human Castiel, first date Castiel in that fucking vest, fragile in the light of the Impala Castiel, his chest rising and falling with his breath. It all has a different meaning now. A necessity, an or else. “You can’t go in there like that,” Dean tries to make it sound casual but he can’t, throat tightening. “Take off the vest,” he says. Castiel’s fingers move quickly. “Now unbutton uh those first top few buttons…” And it’s like a veil being lifted, Castiel, obediently undressing, as he holds Dean’s gaze as one… two… three… 

“Okay, that’s enough,” Dean clears his throat and looks away, unable to hide the way his voice breaks. 

Castiel lays a hand on the seat between them. “Dean,” Castiel says. 

“Cas, you can’t—you can’t go to her,” Dean barely gets out, his heart beating so loudly it’s the only thing he can hear.

“Why not?” Something in Castiel blisters. “At least she actually wants me.”

It was Castiel’s right to be angry, Dean knew that, but it didn’t stop his own anger—an anger that he felt against himself, mostly, remembering the way he tried to make excuses for kicking Castiel out. The $300 he left for Castiel on the bunker table, no note. The nights Castiel stayed in shelters, alone, slept on bridges, alone. _There was no other choice_ , Dean had told himself, as he drank himself to sleep, as he shut his eyes against the thought of Castiel alone, vulnerable, against the deep black night.

“Cas, you don’t understand.” _And I can’t explain it to you._

“I need the truth.”

“I can’t.”

“There’s a lot you can’t do right now, Dean, but still you refuse to tell me what you really want.”

 _What he really wants._ Dean sneaks a glance over at Castiel, catching his blue eyes, the moonlight hitting the now exposed skin on his chest. He shakes his head. _It’s easier for me to hate myself than to admit I want you_ , Dean thinks.

And Dean thinks—and that thinking coils low in his belly, brims hot with frustration. “You know what, okay, fuck you,” Dean spits, jamming his keys in the Impala with a twist. Better, Dean thinks. Familiar. The engine hums to life. Dean distantly notes Castiel saying his name once more but doesn’t pay attention. “Go and live your white picket fucking life with your girlfriend and your job without me and without Sam—just fucking get out.”

Dean doesn’t make any move to put the Impala into drive, and Castiel presses down the lock on his side of the car, the resolute _click_ making his intentions known.

“Every time I say your name, it’s like I am chipping away at the most impenetrable wall.” Castiel inches his hand closer and closer to Dean’s thigh until his fingertips graze the side of the denim. “Dean, take us somewhere.”

+

The night is wet, the motel slopping in it, the off-white building smeared against the black sky, the vacancy sign blinking red in the dewy haze. Dean and Castiel say nothing as they get out of the car, as Dean nervously asks for a room with a single bed, as the front desk attendant looks warily at the two rain-soaked men who never stray far from one another, each pulled so tightly into the other’s orbit, it becomes clear it’s all body memory. The room—number 22 with its worn burgundy carpets, its the stale cigarette musk—feels different than other rooms in the past. Not because of the room itself, but because of Castiel, who follows Dean into it with more confidence than he’d imagined.

“They clearly gave us the best room,” Castiel mumbles, pulling a finger across a dusty dinette table.

“Luxury is the Winchester way, Cas,” Dean shrugs and goes to the TV, fidgeting with the buttons on the remote till the TV comes buzzing to life. “Thought you’d know that by now.”

Castiel walks in front of Dean, blocking the television with his body, and takes the remote out of Dean’s hand. He hits the power button. The room goes quiet again, and Castiel decides to begin the night with question.

“If you could be anywhere,” Castiel begins, “where would you want to be?”

“Miami beach with a Mai Thai with a pair of twins,” Dean looks up through his eyelashes at Castiel, gives him a shit-eating grin.

Castiel rolls his eyes. “Not likely. You’re an old man, Dean.”

“Hey, who the fuck you calling old—”

Dean loses the thought as Castiel takes a few steps forward, his hand drifting across Dean’s shoulder, tracing small circles into the rough fabric of his jacket. Dean wishes it were off. He wishes he were a different person—one where his desires were a roadmap he willingly followed. A clear path. A way of entry. Dean squeezes his eyes shut against the feeling. Castiel’s body is nearly between his knees, and every second, Castiel inches closer, his finger drifting from Dean’s shoulder to his collarbone, only stopping at the dip of Dean’s neck. Castiel can feel Dean swallow.

“Of course, I’m an old man, too,” Castiel continues flippantly. “Older than you. By millennia, even. A celestial being of light now here, looking at you.” Castiel runs his finger along the underside of Dean’s jaw who, still, has been looking down at the ground. Castiel finally raises Dean’s face to meet his own with a gentle push of his hand. Dean’s eyes hold something inexpressible. Castiel would be afraid of that wordlessness if he hadn’t already felt it, intimately pieced it back together into wholeness some years ago. “In here, Dean, I’m human and mortal and in this motel room with you.”

Dean’s jaw sets. “Yeah, yeah, and you’re disappointed. You don’t think I know how I’m a ticking fucking bomb around everyone who lo—"

“Loves you, yes.” Castiel interrupts, with a wave of his hand. “You’re missing the point, Dean. This is a choice. Everything about our bond is a choice. You invalidate my desire with your assumptions about what you think is right or wrong. You never ask me what I think."

 _Desire._ Dean’s gut twists at the word. “That’s ‘cause anybody else would be better, Cas. Easier. I mean, don’t you get tired of fighting? Fighting with me, with the whole fucking universe—”

Castiel moves to turn away from Dean but Dean grabs his thigh, holds him in place. Each fingertip of his digging in, at first, and then relaxing when Castiel, sighing, brings a hand up to the back of Dean’s head. Dean leans forward till his forehead brushes Castiel’s stomach, finds his core and leans into it, breathing and unsteady.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He pauses. “Tell me, uh, tell me what you think. Tell me what you think when you see me, why you uh you...”

Castiel gets down on his knees in front of Dean, his hands gliding down Dean’s arms as he kneels, the slight wince in his face as his knee hits the carpet—aging, bad joints, tired bones, all things he must consider now. Castiel has met Dean at his level before and will do it over and over again.

Looking up at him now from the ground, Castiel tries to catch Dean’s eyes again, welling up with that something, that thing between them that will take lifetimes to understand. “Do you think I want easy, Dean? Did I rebel against Heaven for someone ‘easy’?” Castiel air quotes in earnest and then his voice drops, a church-hushed hum floating in the buzzy room. Tender. “Dean, who could ever love you like I love you?”

In this room, Dean and Castiel are just two men. Castiel’s forehead shimmers with sweat underneath the fluorescent light, his face bright and naked with his admission. What else could be left to hide, to bury between them? Castiel has fallen. Castiel is a convenience store attendant off of some middle America highway. Castiel is beaming, blue-eyed, and drawing Dean’s attention back toward him whether purposefully or not. Still, Dean hesitates, his desperation stretches with his growing hunger.

There were no excuses to be made. _He’s an angel and he doesn’t think about fucking_ , doesn’t cut it any longer. _I don’t know how he feels for me_ , is a moot point. Castiel lost the veil between vessel and flesh and became warm and live. Temporary. And Dean realizes that time had his claws in him for the very first time.

Dean has to make a move.

Dean surges forward to kiss Castiel, a little too rough at first, teeth clashing on teeth, but Castiel puts both hands on the sides of Dean’s face to ease, to deepen. A swipe of tongue, Dean bites at Castiel’s lower lip as he pulls away with his staggering breath. 

“Can’t believe I’m kissing an angel,” Dean laughs, heady and dizzy, his hand fisted in the front of Castiel’s shirt. He leans in again.

“Not an angel anymore.”

“Always to me,” Dean mumbles against his lips. “Cas, I’m a fucking idiot."

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “But we have time now. We have the present.”

 _The present._ Dean runs his hands down the sides of Castiel’s body, landing on his hips, pulling him closer, digging his fingers in deliciously at the skin just underneath Castiel’s shirt—which is still on, a sin, somehow, another barrier Dean refuses to tolerate, he slides it upwards and finally, Dean’s fingers touch Castiel’s bare flesh. A gasp, a moan, a sudden suck of breath. The breathy _Dean_ pressed against his lips as Castiel begins to push Dean forward, down, onto the bed behind them.

“Cas,” he whispers, “Cas, I uh I don’t know—” A sudden fear grips him. An old fear. Dean, as if possessed by it, curls his hands back in on himself, away from Castiel’s body.

“Oh,” Castiel pulls away immediately. In the same breath, Dean misses his lips, his body. Dean wants to be pressed against his skin for so long that he no longer remembers who he is.

“I’m so sorry,” Castiel continues, “My—”

“No,” Dean presses a kiss to Castiel’s lips, red and full. The reality of their situation begins to settle in once more. The angel possessing Sam, the doomed world riding on their shoulders. “No apologies.” Dean kisses Castiel’s forehead, each of his eyelids, and then draws his lips to the side of his cheek, just above his cheekbone, right at the corner of his eye, nearly. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Everything in me wants everything in you,” Castiel says.

The sentiment, honest and true, floors him. Dean’s always been envious of the way Castiel’s could state his desires plainly, once realized.

“Me, uh, me too,” Dean admits shyly, a hand sliding to the back of his neck. “I’m just nervous about…” How could he explain it to Castiel—that what his father thought about who he loved still brings about shame in him? That he spend years of his life, both repressing and pressed against bathroom stalls gagging on cock for money, for food, and then repressing again? It went further each time. It was so dormant Dean hadn’t thought about it until he met Castiel. Seriously thought about it, he means—a relationship beyond sex, beyond a one night fling where they’d never see each other again.

Dean didn’t want that. Not in another motel room, especially not one with Castiel inside of it.

“Cas,” Dean begins and he draws Castiel’s lips against his own for one more kiss, holding him there. “Will you lay down next to me? Tonight?”

“Of course,” Castiel replies, and slips onto the bed next to Dean. "Always."

They lay above the covers, nearly full clothed still, Dean and Castiel both on their sides facing one another. There is no one in the world besides the two of them. Dean brings his hand out to Castiel’s shirt and bunches it in his fist. _I don’t ever wanna let you go_ , Dean thinks, but it doesn’t come out. The unspoken desire sifts out like a prayer in between them that Castiel can no longer hear, but Dean thinks maybe he hears it, anyway. Like body memory yet again, Castiel curls his hand around the one Dean has extended, his fingers feather-light as they brush across his knuckles. While Dean was used to Castiel watching him, he knew now there was another thing happening here: Castiel was _looking_ , and greedily, and each place on Dean that Castiel’s eyes lingered on, Dean imagined it as a touch, a kiss.

Castiel smiles, brings his lips down to Dean’s hand which is still twisting in Castiel’s shirt, whispering something Dean can’t quite catch.

“Enochian?” Dean asks softly.

Castiel smiles. “‘ _And God saw that it was good_.’"

“Good, huh?” Dean grins. “That’s the night’s final score?”

His smile falters. The air conditioning kicks on in the background with an exhausted groan. “Dean, what happens when we leave this room?”

They both know the answer, though neither of them want to hear it. The silence settles between them, knowable and yet unapproachable. The universe’s mess awaits them on the other side of the doorway, a heaven and hell so broken it is now carried on the backs of two Winchesters—two young boys, grown men inside the horror of violence, of weaponry and its expectation. Dean can’t answer. He pulls his hand out from under Castiel’s and tentatively brings it up to Castiel’s cheek, thumbing the bottom of his lip, his eyes never straying from Dean’s. Eyes that could pull Dean back from the edge of the end of the world, eyes that have arrested Dean in a moments of despair and grounded him.

The difference tonight is that Dean allows himself to touch Castiel. The difference is that Castiel opens himself up to Dean, unfurling in the palms of his hands, and leaves no room for doubt. _Yes_ , they both think, _I love you, but there is some time until it can be ours._ The thought is simultaneous. Dean’s hand tightens on the side of Castiel’s face and Castiel brings a hand up to his wrist, squeezes not just once, but three times. 

It’s a moment they will not soon leave. It’s a moment, revisited, later, when they part ways in the morning light, when Dean has to watch Castiel exit his life _again_ , fuck—and there will be so many more times after this, each one burrowing deeper and deeper inside of Dean until he is falling on his knees, broken and bare, beside Castiel’s body and gazing up the sky. No God worth mentioning, no mercy as he wraps up his lover’s body in a white sheet, as he pulls it back and wonders if he’s moving too fast, if Castiel had escaped Death one more time, if he had been too slow in acting upon his desires. But we rewind, we re-focus. The time is different now—somehow soothing in its ignorance as Dean pulls himself closer to Castiel’s body on a scratchy duvet in Room 22. He rests his forehead against Castiel’s. He takes a deep breath. Dean opens his eyes and commits to memory Castiel’s big blues piercing through him. _I will always be yours_ , Dean thinks, and lets himself drift off to a sleep so peaceful, so whole he forgets the end of the world—he shrugs it off till he is a just a man in the light of the love of the man beside him, rapt in attention, an infinite being in a finite body, as the sun rises into the sky behind them. And it was evening, and it is morning—the first day.

**Author's Note:**

> xoxoxoxo
> 
> hmu on honeyonthealtar for more writing, or honeynthenight for dean and cas shitposting


End file.
